Your Smiling Sorrow
by Modern Day Princess
Summary: "Your words are my refuge. They inspire me, give me hope, raise me up and move me immensely. They are my home." Loss. Talking cure. Aria/Ezra. Fluffy and life-affirming one-shot. Please R&R!


**A/N: **I've been working on this idea for a while. It is mostly inspired by personal experience ( like all my stories, pretty much). I might make this one-shot into an original story changing names and revising it, of course. I am just testing the waters, so to speak :) Thank you so much for visiting this story and if you have time to spare, please don't hesitate to review! I always appreciate reviews :) xoxo

**Your Smiling Sorrow**

_When I look at you-into your eyes-deep, dark, penetrating_

_I feel your sadness, strong, subtle, seeping through your eyes_

_I reach out to you-my hand reaching for yours; my touch teeming with all my love_

_I see a faint movement of your lips-your smiling sorrow_

_I see your smiling sorrow and it warms my broken heart_

Loss came upon him as suddenly as a gust of wind; he hasn't escaped it, like anyone else. Intimate loss. It wasn't an unknown terrain for him but forgotten, unoccupied since his childhood after witnessing the death of his grandparents. He didn't quite know how to act, how to welcome this sudden force of devastation. There are moments in life when language loses its potency growing hard and unmoving like stone; these are the moments of palpable pain and loss-grief unsurpassed by words. The heavy weight of loss-a stone.

"My heart is with you", Aria whispered, her voice full of tenderness. She reached out to him like warm ocean finding its way to neighbouring rocks, near and close to the heart of the current. In her hands, language strived to soften the stone, make it vulnerable to human touch. She reached for language faithfully, eagerly.

"Try to see that invisible yet stubborn ray of light. It seems simply out of reach but yet it is there, breathing with life." Aria searched for his hand, finding and clinging to it in the darkness. This quick, simple gesture embodied hidden dynamic power- a soft touch of hope. Empathy grows stronger with love, blossoming in the deepness of human heart. Aria reached out to him with every part of her loving being, his pain and loss becoming her own. There are moments in life when love makes sharing easy and almost a necessity-defining and releasing moments of intimate understanding.

"You speak so beautifully, yet my spirit is broken. I hear your words and I reach out to you with all my might, ready to rise up but yet I fall. Sometimes it is so difficult to see that light you speak of-almost impossible. All I can think about is death and the last words I heard my father speak. The immensity of death, unquestionable surrender. He told me what a life he had lived before his restless eyes closed. It was excruciating".

Through dialogue we are born again. Through words we live, each day garnering new strength. A word, like a gift of life- an almost biblical kind of wonder.

Aria stood in the darkness, slowly dissolving in its embrace, each pore penetrated. Empathy is a strong feeling; empathy born out of love is even stronger. Like Ezra's shadow, she followed him into his pain.

"It may seem nearly impossible now but time makes it easier. It is an entity with healing powers. Trust it and let it subdue you. With each given moment, time will reassemble the broken pieces of your memory and spirit."

She lay next to him, her warmth shielding his withdrawal and loneliness. With her touch, his body softened, leaning into her heat. The weight of pain-a stone-still held him captive. Aria didn't know how to save her loved one from it; all she had was words, her quiet hopeful words. She clung to them, their power, strength, morality.

"Do you hear the stillness?" she asked, immersed in his closeness. "I've never thought about how intelligible things enter you when your senses are acute in times of loss. You can hear a breath of wind, first raindrop, someone's sorrow. Things unspoken. The world is moved by them, more than anything else. You are never alone, Ezra. There's beauty around you, there's life."

Aria felt him tremble, the faint movement of his body replacing a verbal response. "The first thing we'll teach our children is that courage exists in our bodies since birth. It will never forsake us." She kept talking, against the backdrop of stillness.

Through words we live. The first word ever spoken brought life into this earth, a seed of humankind. The word is hidden power.

"I am a believer. It is not centred on God necessarily or a deity or something out of this world but it is present in my every cell. I believe we all need to believe in _something_, relishing in the power of faith and its sheer beauty. If we don't believe then we feel alone. I believe in you, us. I believe in _us_. I will never let this feeling go."

Aria's words, like seeds of Ezra's future self, seeped into his shattered heart. The language, its unbreakable strength, enveloped them in the night. There are moments in life when love conquers pain through words. Moments of peace, perseverance, power.

_I see your smiling sorrow, each part of you straining to make a new start. _

_There's light, there's the presence of God in this given moment _

_I reach out to you, your newfound courage, a breath of power over your shoulder_

_I smile back with all of my broken heart._

"He was a great man- the kind that took your breath away without trying. A giver. A talented writer, a faithful husband, a loyal father. He made every day special and memorable. He always smiled at misfortune, laughed at his mistakes, admitted failure but never gave up. From the very beginning, I promised myself to grow up to be like the man my father was."

Through words we are born again. Ezra slowly began to live again past his pain and loss, breathing with language, imbued with its power. The heavy weight of loss slowly unwrapped its arms around him. In the stillness alongside his loved one, he learned to believe. Things unseen, things unspoken, things quietly uttered in the name of love, the hidden wonder of faith. Life is penetrated with these silent wonders-the glimpses into the realm of love that occur suddenly and almost always instantly. A wave of wind upon calm waters. A pivotal moment of beauty, joy, belonging.

"He's in a better place. Take comfort in this thought. He is in a place of love and unbearable goodness. He is in a place of hope. Some things we don't see or feel but it doesn't mean they are not there. Like hearing the stillness of the room, its silent breathing? We can't possibly prove it exists but we can choose to believe in it. We can choose to feel it with our senses and hearts. "

Ezra leaned into her touch, sudden warmth enveloping his whole being. He couldn't help it, couldn't suppress it; his lips trembled lightly, revealing faint smile amidst his sorrow. His smiling sorrow. It was as sudden as a breath of wind on a blue sky summer day.

"Your words are my refuge. They inspire me, give me hope, raise me up and move me immensely. They are my home."

"I will always be here, my love. Like the stillness of the room, like faith. These are the entities of permanence, resilience, infinity. You can't see them but they exist because you believe in them. You can't see my heart, you can only feel it. You can believe in it."

Aria moved closer to where he lay, still and faintly smiling, and placed his hand over her beating heart.

"Take courage. You are the man your father was. He would have been very proud of you, especially now. You know why my love? Because you are a believer: in hope, in things unseen. You are smiling through your pain, just like he did. You are reassembling yourself for a brighter, better tomorrow. My heart will be with you every step of the way."

"Thank you, my love".

Ezra closed his eyes, slowly falling asleep in her arms. Hope seeped into him, his every cell. He was ready to start again, let the sun illuminate his skin. The word is hidden power, a torch of life.

No one is immune to the feeling of loss, its inescapable power. A stone of loss temporarily blocking the passage of language. Only love conquers pain-love and empathy-through the wonder of words.

The end


End file.
